San Antonio’s largest homeless shelter and services campus, Haven for Hope, has been brimming with families for years, leading to the addition of emergency overflow spaces for families to sleep on the floor five years ago.
The Alliance to House Everyone, a recently rebranded coalition of government and nonprofit service providers, launched a 90/90 challenge over the weekend to house 90 families in 90 days through Feb. 29.
“We’re specifically talking about families with minor children because of the crisis we’re seeing with families sleeping in overflow space,” said Katie Vela Wilson, executive director of Close to Home. The nonprofit coordinates San Antonio and Bexar County’s homelessness response system and federal funding.
The initiative coincides with the national Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week, which started Saturday.
The initiative “impacts the entire homeless response system,” Wilson explained, because housing 90 families means resources and space can be freed up to assist other people experiencing homelessness. Shelters are especially strained during winter months.
As of last week, there were 170 families at Haven, or nearly 560 people, including children. The shelter served 516 families over the last fiscal year that ended in September. The number of families has more than doubled each year since 2021, when it served 258 families, according to a Haven spokeswoman.
As of last week, 72 families were utilizing Haven’s family overflow services, which means they do not receive a bed, but Haven will not turn away a family seeking shelter.
A local initiative to house 500 people in 500 days in 2021 was successful, as was a federal initiative to house 1,500 people experiencing homelessness by the end of 2022.
While those efforts were largely backed by multiple coronavirus pandemic relief grants, the 90/90 effort will benefit from an extra $14.5 million allocated to San Antonio this year from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development aimed at sheltering unhoused people and those fleeing domestic violence.
“We’ve seen a lot of success in the past when we set a goal and meet with our partners to collaborate around solutions to create efficiencies,” Wilson said. “It’ll be an opportunity to show where the gaps are that we can highlight for the business community funders so they can engage as well.”
City Council’s planning and development committee on Monday received an overview of housing and shelter programs aimed at mitigating homelessness. This includes low-barrier shelters, permanent supportive housing and housing vouchers
San Antonio’s $3.7 billion fiscal year 2024 budget invested $17.4 million to support homelessness prevention programs, outreach workers, shelters and more cleanup operations at encampments across the city. The city will perform about 700 cleanups in 2024, which is 200 more than last year.
“One thing that’s different than previous years … is we did not have housing — we have housing now,” Assitant City Manager Lori Houston told the committee. “
Two permanent supportive housing projects — Towne Twin Village and Hudson Apartments — started welcoming formerly unhoused individuals earlier this year. A downtown Holiday Inn will open this month as a low-barrier shelter with 200 beds.
The Strategic Plan to Respond to Homelessness in San Antonio and Bexar County set several five-year goals, including cutting unsheltered homelessness in half by the end of 2025.
The number of unsheltered individuals has remained relatively flat since the end of 2022, hovering at roughly 1,500 people after spiking to 2,500 earlier that year, according to Close to Home’s dashboard that tracks progress toward the plan’s goals.
Correction: This story has been updated to correctly refer to the challenge’s Feb. 29 deadline.
